Tuesday, my son, Stuart, voted in his first presidential election. Since he’s nineteen, I am sure most of you would think that we cancelled each other out at the poll. Not so, his politics are just to the right of Genghis Khan, so much so that his “vanity” license plate reads G3NGHIS. Personally, I am little confused by his politics, since I feel he is more of redistributionist, especially when it comes to his parent’s wealth. Well, he did personally pay for that “vanity” plate, even though reminders of who provides the insurance, gasoline, vehicle repairs and even the vehicle itself are often lost on him. 

     This summer Stuart interned for the Republican Party of Virginia in order “to combat the forces of evil” as he wrote when he thanked one of the references in his internship application. Monday, although under the weather, he attended school in order to finish a presidential debate in his government class which had been suspended from Friday. I don’t need to tell you which candidate he backed.

     With the wonderful idealism that is youth, Stuart began Tuesday night euphoric. When Virginia didn’t immediately turn “blue”, he was convinced that McCain, like Bret Maverick, would draw his inside straight. As the night progressed, his anger and disappointment increased fueled by several Red Bulls. When Ohio and Pennsylvania went Obama, I knew it was over and offered Stuart some perspective reminding him that Carter gave us Reagan and went to bed.

     Wednesday morning,  when Stuart hadn’t gotten up to depart for school, I went to his room to find out why. I was quickly informed that he wasn’t going to school and he had spent the night arguing online with some a…hole at George Mason who doesn’t understand s..t. Both Mary Stuart and I knew we weren’t going to win this argument and relented about school, since hadn’t we voted for the candidate we felt had the strongest convictions.

     When I had gotten up Wednesday, I found one of Stuart’s McCain yard signs on the kitchen floor. I had just assumed he had accepted the outcome and removed them from our yard. As I was pulling out of our driveway to head to work, I noticed a handmade sign in our front yard. It was one of Stuart’s McCain signs turned inside out. Its hand scrawled message read “the democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson.”

     Attaboy, Stu, fight the good fight. It’s moments like this that make me proud of you.